At the heart of entrepreneurial success lies a keen, observant eye and an unwavering passion for bridging gaps in the market. For one visionary entrepreneur, his journey began with a profound realisation born from contrasting market trends across diverse regions.
For MARKETECH APAC’s latest Milestone Series, we spoke with Rajiv Lamba, CEO and founder of SurveySensum and global managing director of NeuroSensum, to talk about one of his greatest milestones — creating an innovative AI-powered solutions platform to uncover deep consumer insights and democratise market research.
In this piece, Lamba shares the inspiration behind the inception of SurveySensum and his journey in understanding consumer behaviour through technology and data-driven insights.
A vision realised through data
Lamba’s journey began when he started observing contrasting market trends across different regions. Early in his career, he had some profound realisations, having noticed a stark difference in how consumers in the West versus those in Southeast Asia approached sharing feedback and preferences with brands.
“In Southeast Asian cultures, consumers would rarely provide direct, critical feedback in quantitative surveys, often claiming they liked a product or advertisement even if they didn’t,” Lamba explained.
The observations Lamba made sparked his passion for bringing neuroscience principles into the market research realm through NeuroSensum, a neuroscience and AI-technology-based market research company. By leveraging tools like electroencephalography (EEG), facial coding, and eye-tracking, Lamba and his team could finally unveil the unspoken truths lingering in the subconscious minds of consumers. For him, it was an exhilarating experience to be able to unlock profound insights for their clients.
However, as he delved deeper into the market research landscape, another glaring issue became apparent to him. Lamba identified that there is still a lack of fast, affordable, and accessible solutions for enterprises of all sizes. A staggering number of businesses couldn’t regularly leverage research consultancies due to the exorbitant costs and lengthy timelines involved.
Recognising the need for affordable and accessible market research solutions, Lamba founded SurveySensum under the Neurosensum umbrella. SurveySensum is an AI-powered customer experience platform that could democratise real-time customer feedback, making it a reality for mid-sized and large enterprises alike.
“I envisioned a future where companies could rapidly build and share omnichannel surveys, gaining invaluable consumer insights at a fraction of research agencies’ cost, and enterprises could do more consumer research and make data-backed decisions,” Lamba shared.
Building the vision, one piece of data at a time
While the idea of launching SurveySensum holds a lot of promise for the industry, pioneering a disruptive technology is never without its challenges. Sceptics doubted the shift from traditional methods to a DIY customer feedback SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution.
However, no amount of doubt made Lamba let go of his vision, a strong belief that would soon pay him off tremendously. SurveySensum has grown into a platform that now serves over 170 large and mid-sized enterprises globally, spanning sectors as diverse as FMCG, telecommunications, banking, insurance, e-commerce, healthcare, retail, and automotive.
What started as a vision has finally materialised into a platform that has helped clients save a remarkable 70–80% on their market research spending and up to 90% in overall time invested.
Commenting on those challenges, Lamba stated, “My team and I persevered, fueled by our profound conviction that AI would inevitably reshape this industry. We doubled down on defining our target personas, educating them on the immense value SurveySensum could unlock, and demonstrating our real-world impact through our work.”
It is interesting to note that while he’s working on SurveySensum, Lamba also serves as the global managing director at NeuroSensum, which means he was juggling both responsibilities across both entities.
He revealed that his primary goals have been to generate consistent cash flow through a blend of internal profitability and external funding, while also exploring new avenues for growth, differentiation, and expansion beyond their current operations in Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and Manila, and their client base spanning over 25 countries worldwide.
“It’s a delicate balancing act, but one that I’ve approached with a steadfast focus on building an exceptional leadership team and empowering them to execute our innovative strategies. It’s a lofty endeavour, but one that has only strengthened my resolve and leadership capabilities over time,” Lamba stated.
Shaping the future of market research
Lamba believes SurveySensum has revolutionised how businesses approach data-driven decision-making.
Whereas such in-depth analysis once took weeks or months of arduous manual coding, SurveySensum has condensed that process to minutes. Companies can finally respond with agility to the rapidly evolving needs and sentiments of their customers, pivoting strategies and staying ahead of the competition like never before.
“Looking back, I’m incredibly proud of how SurveySensum has indelibly transformed the way businesses approach data-driven decision-making. By harnessing the power of AI and machine learning, we’ve made it possible to derive real-time insights from open-ended customer feedback across a multitude of languages, including Asian native languages,” he added.
Lamba also shared that he is incredibly excited about the future that awaits customer feedback platforms like SurveySensum, as the accelerating advancements in AI and machine learning will undoubtedly continue shaping this domain in profound ways.
“At SurveySensum, we’re already at the forefront of these trends with our cutting-edge text analytics capabilities. Our proprietary algorithms are continuously trained and refined across verticals, geographies, and data sets, ensuring our ability to extract accurate, actionable insights from even the most nuanced customer verbatim grows more potent by the day,” he explained.
On the idea of future trends and technology shaping customer feedback platforms, Lamba believes that SurveySensum is positioned well enough to capitalise on these trends. The brand is already working to launch an AI summary and insights on our platform, where a client doesn’t need to analyse the data or information from the surveys, but the platform itself will be able to provide a textual summary and actionable insights. This will again save hours of analysis time and reduce dependency on research agencies and consultants for consumer research needs.
“Moreover, our omnichannel approach has perfectly positioned us to thrive in today’s ecosystem, where consumers are engaging with brands across a myriad of digital and physical touchpoints. Whether it’s email, WhatsApp, SMS, QR codes, chatbots, or social media, SurveySensum empowers companies to connect with their audiences wherever they are,” Lamba added.
Personal and career reflections
Reflecting on SurveySensum’s milestones, including four successful funding rounds and achieving profitability, Lamba takes pride in the journey of disruptive innovation.
“I can’t help but swell with immense pride and gratitude. This journey has been an exhilarating testament to the power of disruptive innovation and the tireless efforts of my passionate and highly talented team,” he shared.
As he reached his fifth year on SurveySensum, he shared that some of his most profound learnings have stemmed from the setbacks and course corrections they’ve had to navigate along the way. The team faced some major mistakes early on, getting too caught up in the competitive landscape and over-engineering their initial product far beyond the basics of a true ‘minimum viable product’ (MVP).
It wasn’t until they took that first iteration to market that Lamba and his team realised it wasn’t aligned with what their clients truly needed. That, for him, was a wake-up call that taught him a lesson he will never forget: the paramount importance of deeply understanding your market from the outset.
“Knowing your target personas inside and out, grasping the nuances of their pain points and the true market size, and talking to them directly are the crucial first steps before investing significant time and resources into product development. Getting a lean MVP into the market rapidly, absorbing feedback, and iterating from that stable base is the smartest path to sustainable growth,” Lamba further explained.
For Lamba, if there’s one piece of advice he could impart to aspiring entrepreneurs, it would be to make understanding your market deeply a priority from day one. Define your target personas with granularity, validate the scale of the opportunity, and start leaning with an MVP before overinvesting prematurely. Then, embrace an evolution mindset—continue evolving that initial solution based on real user inputs and consumption patterns.
“This approach has become the bedrock of my own entrepreneurial philosophy and leadership mindset. While the path has been arduous, it has also been immensely rewarding, constantly propelling me to new heights of personal growth, strategic thinking, and passionate determination,” he said.
Another piece of advice from him is to closely monitor profitability and cash flow from operations and align your management team so that the company is self-reliant and self-sustainable. In spite of having two offerings—neuroscience-based consulting and SurveySensum SAAS solutions—we became profitable in our fourth year, and at the same time, we were able to get business from more than 25 countries across the globe and have a physical presence in four countries.
Lamba’s journey with Neurosensum and SurveySensum exemplifies the impact of innovative thinking and technological integration in market research. As he continues to lead with passion and vision, the future of market research promises to be more insightful and accessible than ever before.
“As I look to the future, I’m filled with excitement for what lies ahead for SurveySensum and the market research industry as a whole. The key is to keep evolving, keep rapidly iterating, keep shattering paradigms, and never lose sight of the deepest needs of your clients and the value they expect you to provide them,” Lamba concluded.
